Gas Turbine Shortage Pushes US AI Data Centers Toward Used Turbines and Retired Jet Engines

A global shortage of new gas turbines is forcing AI data center developers, utilities and power companies in the United States to look for unusual alternatives. Faced with delivery dates that now stretch into the next decade, buyers are scouring the world for second-hand turbines, bringing mothballed units back into service and converting retired aircraft engines into power generators, according to a Reuters investigation published on November 9, 2026, that drew on more than a dozen brokers, service companies and equipment suppliers.

The root of the problem is a mismatch between demand and factory output. Worldwide orders for gas turbines now exceed 100 gigawatts (GW), according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, while global manufacturing capacity is estimated at only 60 GW to 70 GW per year. In the United States, a new gas turbine now takes about six years on average to be delivered, and Wood Mackenzie says that delivery discussions with manufacturers are now centered on the 2030 to 2031 period.

Data centers have become a major source of this pressure. Until a few years ago, gas turbines were sold almost exclusively to traditional utilities. Analysts at Jefferies now estimate that US data centers alone represent close to 17 GW of turbine demand in 2026, a figure that could more than triple by 2028. Even though manufacturers are expanding their plants, global production capacity is only expected to reach around 87 GW in 2028, well below the projected demand of about 129 GW.

The three companies that dominate the market, GE Vernova, Siemens Energy and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, all say AI-driven orders have outgrown their production capacity. On October 28, GE Vernova reported that its gas equipment backlog and slot reservations had reached 122 GW at the end of September, up from 116 GW three months earlier, and said it expects at least 130 GW under contract by the end of 2026. The company is now accepting reservations for delivery in 2032, and its chief executive said data centers account for roughly 20% of that demand. Pricing on new orders in the third quarter was more than 20% higher than at the end of 2025. Siemens Energy ended June with a 69 GW gas turbine backlog, with about a quarter of its order book tied to data center projects.

This bottleneck has created a booming secondary market. Equipment services firm EthosEnergy described demand for used turbines as extremely strong and said sellers are asking for higher prices. Swiss engineering group Sulzer, which runs an aftermarket business in the United States, said it receives requests every few weeks from clients trying to source a used gas turbine for a data center.

Price is another driver. Well-maintained used turbines sell for about $1.5 million to $1.7 million per megawatt (MW), and refurbished units for about $1.3 million per MW, according to Origin Partners, a firm that buys power equipment for data center developers. By comparison, new turbines cost roughly $2 million to $2.5 million per MW, according to Aurora Energy Research. The gap can be even wider for smaller machines. Broker ReflowX said two 14.5 MW turbines made by Caterpillar subsidiary Solar Turbines recently changed hands for $12.5 million, around $430,000 per MW, while new equivalents would cost about $35 million and take five years to arrive.

When large turbines are unavailable, developers are turning to fleets of small units. US equipment supplier SVI Bremco said some projects install more than 100 smaller turbines at a single site, often mixing different models and brands to reach the required capacity.

Jet engines have become a central part of this workaround. Aeroderivative turbines, which are built around aircraft engine technology, can be delivered much faster than heavy industrial turbines. Missouri-based ProEnergy rebuilds the cores of retired GE CF6-80C2 engines, the type once used on Boeing 747 jets, into generator sets producing close to 50 MW each. In April 2026, AI infrastructure company Crusoe ordered 13 of these units from ProEnergy, with a combined capacity of 650 MW, for its US data center projects. Crusoe already relies heavily on GE Vernova aeroderivative turbines at its Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas, built for OpenAI, where on-site gas generation backs up the grid connection. In September, however, Crusoe walked away from a planned $1.25 billion purchase of 29 turbines from Boom Supersonic, a startup that had started selling a power plant version of its jet engine.

Other players are entering the field. FTAI Aviation, a jet engine leasing and repair company, is converting CFM56 engines used on Boeing 737 aircraft, and its joint venture with China's Jereh Group signed an initial $1.465 billion order in July 2026 for generator sets with an unnamed international cloud provider. Elon Musk's xAI has used converted jet engine turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, from a power plant across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi. Mississippi regulators approved 41 permanent turbines at that site in March 2026, but local residents and civil rights groups continue to contest the use of temporary units.

The shortage is also hitting buyers far outside the technology sector. The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned utility, said prices for all equipment, whether new, used or refurbished, have risen sharply over the past two years. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents customer-owned non-profit utilities, said its members face unprecedented lead times and surging prices and are turning to every available option, including refurbished turbines.

Alternatives to turbines are also gaining ground. Finnish group Wartsila has booked around 3 GW of orders since spring 2025 from US data centers for power plants based on gas engines rather than turbines. Even these alternatives are getting harder to obtain quickly. In June 2026, Wartsila announced a 292 million euro order from Liberty Energy for a US data center power plant, with equipment deliveries scheduled to start only in 2029 and continue into 2030.

Second-hand equipment is not a perfect solution. Wood Mackenzie warns that overhauled turbines can come with unclear maintenance records, limited remaining lifespan and weak long-term service support. Converted jet engines are also less fuel efficient and emit more pollution than turbines designed for power plants, which means more units are needed to produce the same amount of electricity, and their ability to run continuously as generators is still being questioned. Enverus Intelligence Research believes the secondary market can only partly ease the shortage, since the supply of spare machines is already limited. Air permits and grid connection delays remain additional obstacles for new projects.

As of November 2026, there is no sign of quick relief. GE Vernova plans to lift its annual output to about 24 GW in 2028 and 30 GW in 2030, but its order book keeps growing faster than its factories can deliver. Until new capacity comes online, US data center developers are expected to keep relying on used turbines, aircraft-derived units and engine-based power plants to bring their AI campuses online, at higher cost and with greater operational risk.